Pin it

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

WASHINGTON (September 30, 2009) -- Events this week in Congress provide fresh proof that top Democratic leaders in Congress are pushing forward with plans to establish massive new programs that would pay for elective abortions and subsidize insurance coverage of abortions -- which, if achieved, would break from decades of federal policy.

"Bills currently advancing in Congress would establish direct federal funding of elective abortion, and tax subsidies for private insurance that covers elective abortions -- both drastic breaks from longstanding federal policy," commented Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of right-to-life organizations in all 50 states. "Ongoing events on Capitol Hill demonstrate the hollowness of President Obama's public assurances that he does not seek government funding of abortion."

The Senate Finance Committee today continued a series of meetings to amend the "America's Healthy Future Act," a health care restructuring bill proposed by Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mt.). The bill has a number of major abortion-related problems. Most of today's abortion-related debate in the committee focused on a proposed new program that would use tax money to help purchase private health insurance for about 19 million Americans. The bill specifically authorizes the use of these federal funds to pay premiums on private plans that cover elective abortions -- a departure from longstanding federal policy.

Pro-life Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) pointed out that federal subsidies for coverage of elective abortions are not currently allowed under Medicaid, the Federal Employees Health Benefits program, or other federal health programs. Hatch offered an amendment, backed by NRLC, that would have prohibited federal funds from subsidizing plans that cover elective abortions, but would have allowed insurers to sell abortion coverage through separate supplemental policies not subsidized by federal funds. The Hatch Amendment failed, 10-13. Baucus and all other Democrats on the committee opposed the Hatch Amendment, except for Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND), who supported it. All of the Republicans on the committee supported the Hatch Amendment, except for Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), who opposed it.

By an identical roll call, the committee also rejected another Hatch Amendment that would have codified the Hyde-Weldon Amendment, which is a temporary law prohibiting any level of government from discriminating against health-care providers that do not wish to participate in providing abortions.

On July 15, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee approved a different health care bill (S. 1679), which also contains provisions that would result in sweeping pro-abortion mandates and government subsidies for elective abortion. NRLC's Johnson commented, "Today's Finance Committee votes mean that the combined bill that will reach the Senate floor in a few weeks surely will contain provisions that would result in both pro-abortion federal mandates and huge federal abortion subsidies. However, the full Senate must vote on the pro-abortion subsidies, and other pro-abortion components as well."

Meanwhile, in the House, Reps. Bart Stupak (D-Mi.), Joseph Pitts (R-Pa.), and 181 other members of the U.S. House on September 28 sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.), pointing out that the health care bill approved in the House Energy and Commerce Committee (H.R. 3200), including an amendment offered by Rep. Lois Capps (D-Ca.), "radically departs from the current federal government policy of not paying for elective abortion or subsidizing plans that cover abortion." The letter notes, among other things, that the Capps language "explicitly authorizes the federal government (the Department of Health and Human Services) to directly fund elective abortions, with federal (public) funds drawn on a federal Treasury account," through the proposed "public plan."

The signers -- 25 Democrats and 158 Republicans -- urged Pelosi to allow a vote on the Stupak-Pitts Amendment to prohibit coverage of elective abortions by the public plan and subsidies for private plans that cover elective abortions. Seven other House Democrats have sent Pelosi similar letters in recent days, for a total of 32 Democrats.

In response, on September 29 Rep. Capps sent Pelosi a letter in which she argued that the proposed public plan really would not be paying for abortions because "money is transmitted to a private contractor who then reimburses physicians." Johnson called Capps' argument "truly laughable -- it is like arguing that it is not the government paying for the abortions if the government sends the payment via the Internet."

In reality, Johnson said, "The proposed public plan will be entirely a branch of the federal government, all of its funds will be federal funds, and when it pays for abortions, that will be direct government funding of abortion."

Johnson also noted that the nearly united opposition to the Hatch Amendment by Senate Finance Committee Democrats, and the continued resistance by the House Democratic leadership to allowing a vote on the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, "support our theory that President Obama is misleading the public when he says he does not want federal dollars used for abortion. In an attempt to keep his 2007 promises to Planned Parenthood, the President is trying to smuggle sweeping pro-abortion policies into law behind smokescreens of contrived language, verbal misdirection, and outright misrepresentation."

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Group files suit against Oklahoma's ban on sex-selection abortion and comprehensive abortion-reporting requirements

WASHINGTON -- Today, the Center for Reproductive Rights filed suit against a single-issue abortion law in Oklahoma - set to go into effect on November 1, 2009 - that bans abortion for the purpose of sex-selection and that enhances the state's abortion-reporting requirements. The law was passed by large majorities in the Oklahoma legislature and signed by Governor Brad Henry in May.

"It is absurd, bordering on incredible, that an organization that says it cares about 'women's rights' would challenge a law that seeks to help women and their children," said Mary Spaulding Balch, J.D., National Right to Life director of state legislation. "It is unfortunate, even in this enlightened age of women, that many cultures here and abroad favor males over females. With this sex-selection ban, the state of Oklahoma has declared that female children are valued as highly as male children."

In addition to the ban on sex-selection abortion, the abortion law also contains the nation's most comprehensive abortion-reporting provisions which seek to analyze, among other things, the reasons women seek abortion in the first place.

"Abortion is the most under-regulated, under-investigated, and under-researched procedure done on American women today, yet it is the most common and most potentially dangerous to their health and well-being," Balch added. "If a state can get a handle on the reasons women have abortions, it can lead to better programs that will make it easier for women to have their children rather than resort to abortion."

The National Right to Life Committee, the nation’s largest pro-life group is a federation of affiliates in all 50 states and 3,000 local chapters nationwide. NRLC, 512 10th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20004

Friday, September 25, 2009

I am postponing my second column on the direct complicity of doctors and psychologists during the CIA's torturing of terrorism suspects because of the sudden disclosure that, in the influential Senate Finance Committee's health-care bill, there is a dangerous provision that could deny crucial health treatments for Medicare patients.

This is the much-publicized and debated Baucus bill, named for Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus. In its news section, the Wall Street Journal reported (Sept. 17) that this bill "breaks a logjam and is likely to form the core of a bill in the full Senate."

During the continuous, extensive coverage of this proposed legislation, there has been only very limited mention – and none I've seen in the mainstream press – of a section that penalizes doctors for Medicare patients who, for at least five years (from 2015 to 2020), authorize total treatments that wind up in the top 10 percent of national annual Medicare costs per patient.

The 1 in 10 Medicare doctors who spend beyond this limit will themselves lose 5 percent of their own total Medicare reimbursements. Considering the already low rates Medicare doctors get – and the president pledges they will get lower – this could be a heavy penalty.

As Burke Balch, director of the National Right to Life's Center for Medical Ethics, says: "This (part of the Baucus bill) means that all doctors treating older people will constantly be driven to try to order the least-expensive tests and treatments for fear they will be caught in that top 10 percent. Note that this feature operates independently of any considerations of quality, efficiency or waste. If you authorize enough treatment for your patients, however necessary and appropriate it may be, you are in danger of being one of the 1 in 10 doctors who will be penalized each year."

There is, however, in the Baucus bill what seems to be an exception to this iron mandate for reducing medical-care costs that indeed is not related to quality of care, while aiming solely at reducing the national debt. There is a section (page 80, the Chairman's Mark) that gives Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of health and human services, permission to adjust these strictures for "those physicians who tend to serve less healthy individuals who may require more intensive interventions."

But what is submerged in here is the cold fact that even if a Medicare doctor does apply this permission in treating certain patients, as he considers necessary, the pressures will continue – with regard to his entire cumulative roster of other Medicare patients – to keep very much in mind that he or she may still be in peril of winding up at the end of a year in the punishable top 10 percent of annual Medicare costs per patient.

To bring Balch back into the conversation concerning the actual effects of the 10 percent health penalty on real-life patients, as well as doctors, he points out that this penalty for Medicare doctors "creates a moving target."

"By definition," Balch said, "there will always be a top 10 percent, no matter how far down the total amount of money spent on Medicare is driven." Say that 2015, the top 10 percent is anything over $10,000 per patient. In 2016, most doctors will scramble to hold down the treatments they authorize to avoid breaking that limit."

But the real possibility, as a result, is that the total annual amount of that limit will drop. So next year, doctors will try to avoid being in the penalty box for anything they authorize over $9,500. Burke Balch adds:
"As the process repeats, the next year might be anything over $9,000. The year after that anything over $8,000, and so on. It's a game of musical chairs, in which there is always one chair less than the number of players. No matter how fast the contestants run, someone will always be the loser when the music stops."

But Medicare doctors will not be the only losers. As the doctors struggle to keep abreast of the continually falling limit of the money they can authorize for their contingent of patients, consider what those patients will lose in the quality of their treatment.

The bluntest assessment of this approach to health-care "reform" is by National Right to Life executive director David N. O'Steen: "It takes the telltale fingerprints from the government: Instead of bureaucrats directly specifying the treatment denials that will mean death and poorer health for older people, it compels individual doctors to do the dirty work."

Even if this insidious provision does not survive in the eventual Senate bill, or is excluded from the subsequent House-Senate Conference Committee report on what President Obama will eventually enact into law, its actual existence is a further warning to all of us to pay very close attention to all the health-care "reform" bills before any of them becomes law. For some of us, our very lives may depend on the ultimate statute – not only because of the quality of care we will get, but rather for the nature of our final exit.

An adage that took me many years to understand is that "what the government gives, it can take away." That's why an essential individual responsibility of American citizenship is to keep a close eye on your government at all times.

Nat Hentoff is a nationally renowned authority on the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights and author of many books, including "The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance."

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

WASHINGTON (September 22, 2009) -- On September 21, 2009, PolitiFact released two "Truth-O-Meter" ratings on two statements made by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) about the new health care restructuring bill, the "America's Healthy Future Act," proposed by Senator Max Baucus (D-Mt.). Both statements appeared in the same September 16 NRLC press release. This is the NRLC statement that PolitiFact rated as "true":
The Baucus bill "contains provisions that would send massive federal subsidies directly to both private insurance plans and government-chartered cooperatives that pay for elective abortion."

And this is the NRLC statement that PolitiFact rated as "false":
"Under the Baucus bill...federal funds would subsidize coverage of elective abortions."

PolitiFact reached these seemingly contradictory conclusions by buying into the fiction that the federal government can use federal funds to help purchase private health insurance plans that cover elective abortions, and yet not "subsidize coverage of elective abortions." This is the kind of argument that most journalists and policymakers would not accept for one minute if it was advanced by a private entity that wished to receive a federal subsidy while continuing to engage in activities that are contrary to federal public policy with respect to, for example, race discrimination (e.g., the federal tax exemption at stake in the famous Bob Jones University case) or sex discrimination (e.g., Grove City College, in another famous case in which the federal subsidy consisted of individual students who had received Pell grants).

Likewise, the Hyde Amendment and similar laws embody a policy view that abortion is a bad thing, to be discouraged. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that no constitutional principle is violated when the government advances "a value judgment favoring childbirth over abortion, and . . . implement[ing] that judgment by the allocation of public funds" (Maher v. Roe), and "by means of unequal subsidization of abortion and other medical services, encourages alternative activity deemed in the public interest" (Harris v. McRae, upholding the Hyde Amendment).

We believe that when the federal government pays for insurance, the federal government pays for what the insurance pays for. Therefore, since the Baucus bill would spend federal funds to pay part of the premium cost of private plans that cover elective abortion, the federal government would indeed be subsidizing "coverage of elective abortions," regardless of how the insurer keeps his books.

The various PolitiFact articles about the abortion-related controversies in the health care bills are consolidated on one page here. If you read them all you may get vertigo, because PolitiFact's understanding of these matters is sophisticated on some points, but shallow and muddled on others. Even now, it appears that they have not completely grasped that under the House bill (H.R. 3200), as amended by the Capps Amendment, the "public plan" would be explicitly authorized to cover elective abortions, and that the funds used to pay for the abortions would be legally and in every ordinary use of the term "federal funds" -- thus, the "public plan" would be engaged in direct federal funding of abortion on demand.

In other words, the House bill explicitly authorizes direct federal funding of elective abortion, through the public plan, and this problem is entirely separate and distinct from the problems that arise from the premium-subsidy program. Since PolitiFact still doesn't fully recognize that, it is not too surprising that they are confused about the more complicated Baucus arrangement.

Part of PolitiFact's ongoing confusion may be the product of a faulty and arbitrary premise, found in this statement in the next-to-last paragraph in this article: ". . . we think the court of common sense says that if someone claims abortion would be subsidized with federal funds, it suggests more federal tax dollars would pour into plans that cover abortion."

This "more federal tax dollars" test is misconceived and indeed untenable. Before the Hyde Amendment took effect in 1977, the federal Medicaid program was paying for 300,000 elective abortions a year, but under this arbitrary PolitiFact definition, the federal Medicaid program never actually "subsidized abortion with federal funds"! That's because the federal Medicaid program saved money every time it paid for an abortion, because it is much cheaper to kill an unborn child than to pay for prenatal care and childbirth.

According to a 2007 article, the average cost of prenatal care and childbirth for a Medicaid client is $6,719. The average cost of a first-trimester abortion is under $500. The figures were lower in earlier decades, but the ratio was roughly the same. So when the federal Medicaid program paid for an abortion, it saved Medicaid money. Still, it requires the use of very tortured logic and a contrived terminology to deny that the federal Medicaid program was subsidizing abortion prior to the enactment of the Hyde Amendment.

We hope that the PolitiFact editors will reconsider the practice of filtering our discourse through their fallacious assumptions about what they think the pro-life side is trying to achieve or what they think we are implying, rather than looking at what we actually say and at the meaning of words like "subsidize" and "federal funds" as they appear in standard reference sources, unrelated to the current debate over abortion policy. Contrary to the perhaps unconscious assumption that the PolitiFact reporters and editors seem to be imposing on this debate, the Hyde Amendment and similar pro-life amendments were not advanced to save "tax dollars." They were advanced to save lives.

When we now talk about the provisions of the various health care bills, using definitions of "subsidy" and "federal funds" that have long been accepted with respect to innumerable government programs, we are not engaged in falsehood. The skeptical scrutiny ought to fall on those who, in order to advance their goal of having the government begin subsidizing abortion-covering plans, want to impose novel and contrived definitions of what constitutes a "subsidy" and what constitutes "federal funds."

When the government helps pay for insurance, the government subsidizes coverage of whatever the insurance covers. When the federal government gives money to a health insurer to help pay for a plan that covers elective abortion, it is indeed a subsidy of elective abortion coverage, in the ordinary English meaning of the term "subsidy," even if the cost to the government is the same as the subsidy that would be paid for some other plan that does not cover abortion.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

WASHINGTON (September 18, 2009) -- The pro-abortion public relations machine is in full throttle in support of the abortion-related components of the health care bills that are being pushed by the White House and top congressional Democrats.

1. A detailed outline of Senator Max Baucus' proposed health care bill was released on September 16. The proposal has many objectionable components pertaining to both abortion and rationing. The initial NRLC statement on the bill and a follow up release on the "death spiral" provision is at http://www.nrlactioncenter.com/.

2. Over the last few days, a number of websites, including Huffington Post, The Hill, and RHRealityCheck.org, have published an essay by Congresswoman Lois Capps (D-Ca.) titled, "The Truth About the Capps Amendment." We recommend that you read the piece on RHRealityCheck.org, at http://www.nrlactioncenter.com/. That site has a permissive comment policy, and NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson has challenged Rep. Capps in a detailed rebuttal.

3. The Baltimore Sun ran (twice!) an op ed by Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) President Cecile Richards, titled, "Plan Wouldn't Fund Abortion," most recently on September 13. A rebuttal by NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson titled "Planned Parenthood's Hidden Agenda on Health Reform" was submitted to the Sun but ignored. However, on September 16, the Winona (Mn.) Daily News, which also ran the original Richards piece, published the rebuttal, under the title "What Does Cecile Richards Really Want?," at http://www.nrlactioncenter.com/.

4. Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus did her bit for the Capps Amendment in a column that ran in the Post on September 9, and subsequently in some other papers. National Review Online published on September 9 a rebuttal by NRLC's Douglas Johnson. You can read it at http://www.nrlactioncenter.com/.

5. Laurie Rubiner, vice president for public policy and advocacy for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), posted an essay titled "Bridging the Divide on Health Care for Women," dated September 9, 2009, on Daily Kos, and on RHRealityCheck.org, where a detailed rebuttal by NRLC's Douglas Johnson was posted, http://www.nrlactioncenter.com/.

6. Veteran pro-abortion activist Frances Kissling posted an essay on several websites, "Exploiting the Health Care Debate to Restrict Abortion." The thrust of Kissling's essay was that the pro-abortion side had already compromised enough and that no further concessions should be made to the right-to-life side. A rebuttal by NRLC's Douglas Johnson was posted on RHRealityCheck.org on September 16. You can read it at http://www.nrlactioncenter.com/.

7. On September 11, http://www.politifact.com/ examined in detail, and rated as "True," the following statement by House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-Oh.): "During his quest for the presidency, now-President Obama declared that everyone deserves access to reproductive health care that includes abortion, and vowed that this 'right' would be at the heart of his health care reform plan if elected president." You can read about this at http://www.nrlactioncenter.com/.

8. In light of some of the press coverage of recent days, it is evident that NRLC's September 8 "duped media" advisory remains timely and should be required reading for journalists who are covering the congressional fight.
_________________________________

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

WASHINGTON -- The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the nation's largest pro-life group comprised of 50 state right-to-life organizations and about 3,000 local chapters, today reacted to the new bill issued by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mt.).
ABORTION MANDATES AND FEDERAL SUBSIDIES

The following statement may be attributed to Douglas Johnson, NRLC legislative director: The "America's Healthy Future Act," proposed today by Senator Max Baucus (D-Mt.), contains an array of pro-abortion mandates and federal subsidies for elective abortion. National Right to Life strongly opposes the legislation in its current form. We will work in support of amendments to eliminate the abortion mandates and federal abortion subsidies.

The bill contains provisions that would send massive federal subsidies directly to both private insurance plans and government-chartered cooperatives that pay for elective abortion. This would be a drastic break from longstanding federal policy, under which federal funds do not pay for elective abortions or subsidize health plans that cover elective abortions. For example, current law prohibits any of the over 250 private health plans that participate in the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) program from paying for elective abortions, because these plans receive federal subsidies. These private plans cover over 8 million federal employees and dependents, including members of Congress.

Thus, under the Baucus bill, like the House Democratic leadership bill (H.R. 3200), federal funds would subsidize coverage of elective abortions. In addition, the Baucus bill requires that a specific charge must be included in the premiums paid by those who enroll in such subsidized plans, of at least "$1 per enrollee, per month," which amounts to a surcharge specifically for elective abortions.

These bills are not consistent with President Obama's September 9 claim that "no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions," or with Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius's September 13 affirmation that "no public funds would go to fund abortions." Funds spent by federal agencies are, by law, federal funds. The claim that under these bills, a federal agency would use "private funds" to subsidize abortions is absurd on its face -- a political hoax.

In addition, the Baucus bill provides $6 billion in federal funds for the establishment of health insurance cooperatives, without any limitation on the use of these funds to pay for abortions or to subsidize plans that pay for elective abortions. In addition, the Baucus bill contains language that would allow the federal government to declare abortion to be a "mandated benefit as part of a minimum benefits package" in any circumstances in which the federal Medicaid program could pay for an abortion. Currently, the federal Medicaid program pays for abortion only in three limited circumstances: to save the life of the mother, or in cases of rape or incest. But that limitation depends on language, the Hyde Amendment, that expires every September 30, and that must be renewed annually as part of the Health and Human Services appropriations bill. Under the Baucus language, if one house of Congress, and/or the President, blocked renewal of the Hyde Amendment, many private insurance plans could be forced to include abortion on demand as a mandatory benefit in the minimum benefits package. This would be another major departure from the status quo. (Currently, only 13 percent of all abortions are billed directly to private insurance, according to the Guttmacher Institute.)

HEALTH CARE RATIONING

In addition to the abortion funding provisions described above, the bill also contains important elements that would greatly impact the ability of patients to receive unrationed medical care. The following statement may be attributed to David N. O'Steen, Ph.D., NRLC executive director: With respect to rationing, the proposal contains a Medicare provision that, beginning in 2015, would severely financially penalize physicians who are in the top 10% of medical resource use. This provision does not link funding to outcomes or quality; instead, it will force a "race to the bottom" with relentless pressure on doctors to limit health care for their older patients. On top of the significant Medicare cuts in the bill, this will gravely endanger the lives of America's senior citizens.

The bill does contain language to prevent the use of comparative effectiveness analysis in a manner that would discriminatorily deny treatment because of age, disability, or terminal illness; however, this language would not affect the financial incentive to ration care as described above.

There are other places in the bill where the Secretary of Health and Human Services is given discretion to regulate the treatment that healthcare providers can give to their patients. NRLC will continue to review the bill and provide further analysis.

The National Right to Life Committee is the nation’s largest pro-life group with affiliates in all 50 states and over 3,000 local chapters nationwide. National Right to Life works through legislation and education to protect those threatened by abortion, infanticide, euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Charlotte, NC (LifeNews.com) -- A pregnant 15-year-old girl was shot and killed Monday morning while at a bus stop waiting for the school bus. Tiffany Wright was 32 weeks pregnant at the time and her unborn baby girl is reportedly in critical condition at a local hospital following the shooting.
Doctors at the Carolinas Medical Center delivered the baby three hours after the shooting took place.

According to a Charlotte Observer report, Wright was an 11th-grader at Hawthorne High School, which offers a special program for pregnant moms and teen girls with newborns.
Police told the newspaper on this afternoon that they believe the shooting was the result of a domestic dispute and that Wright was found in the street shot in the head at the time officials arrived.

WBTV has more on the story and indicates Wright's grandmother walked her to the bus stop and returned to it after getting her a glass of water and found Wright dead. Ashelee Barber, a niece of Tiffany Wright's foster mother, said the teen had a positive outlook on life despite her pregnancy and was excited about the baby. "She was just a very sweet girl," said Barber to the newspaper. "I assume she was going through a lot of stuff. When people go through tough times, they sometimes develop hateful feelings, but she wasn't that way."
North Carolina, unlike 36 other states, does not have a law on the books allowing prosecutors to charge defendants with killing or injuring the unborn child when they attack a pregnant woman. Although the culprit may serve jail time for the death of or injury to the mother, there is no punishment and no justice for the crime committed against the baby. Pro-life advocates tried to get the legislature to approve HB 890, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, last session.

Police are still looking for a suspect in the shooting and anyone with information is asked to call detectives at 704-432-TIPS or Crime Stoppers, 704-334-1600.

Greensboro, NC-Recently, we mourned the many innocent victims of 911 and renewed our vow never to forget those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001. Enemies of our country used airplanes to kill innocent people in Pennsylvania, New York, and Washington, DC. Each day in America, abortion providers use instruments and drugs to kill innocent unborn babies. We must never forget them and the fact that this killing goes on behind closed doors every day of every year.

Regrettably, 911 will also be a day of remembrance of an elderly pro-life activist with disabilities named Jim Pouillon who was shot as he peacefully sat holding a his pro-life sign across the street from a Michigan high school. He is described as a man who abhorred violence of any kind, especially the violence of abortion. He knew that every day in the United States about 3,500 innocent unborn babies lose their lives to abortion and with each abortion, another mother is scarred forever and families will mourn those they will never know.

Since 1973, 50 million innocent unborn babies have died because of the so-called “right to choose” or “reproductive rights.” Those who support abortion on demand use code words like “reproductive health” and “choice” when they speak about their support for abortion. There is an excellent example of how these code words are used at www.NRLactioncenter.com in a video where Barack Obama speaks to Planned Parenthood.

Now, abortion will be greatly expanded if Barack Obama and the pro-abortion leadership in the Congress get their way. If health care is passed without explicitly excluding abortion, there will federal funding of abortion in a scale that will dwarf the number of abortions previously done annually. We, as people who rightly mourn the thousands who died on 911, mourn also the 50 million unborn children who have died. We must vow to never forget them by working to keep any health care plan from being used to finance with federal funds abortion on demand.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Washington, DC - Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, appearing on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, addressed questions pertaining to the effect of health care legislation on abortion policy. George Stephanopoulos has posted a partial transcript of the exchange on his blog at http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2009/09/sebelius-president-rules-out-public-funding-for-abortion.html.
What follows is a reaction from Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the national federation of right-to-life organizations: "For months, the President, his staff, and his congressional allies have misrepresented actual language in their bills that would result in government funding of elective abortions. The latest statements by Mr. Obama and Ms. Sebelius are most likely a continuation of their strategy of denial, evasion, and distortion. We say, watch what they do, not what they say."
Further details on the ongoing disinformation campaign is found here:http://www.nrlc.org/AHC/Advisory090809.html

The National Right to Life Committee, the nation's largest pro-life group is a federation of affiliates in all 50 states and 3,000 local chapters nationwide.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

WASHINGTON, Wednesday, September 9, 2009, 9:30pm Derrick Jones (202) 423-339 (mobile) mediarelations@nrlc.org – In his address to a joint session of Congress tonight, President Obama said, "One more misunderstanding I want to clear up -- under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions."

Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, commented: "Barack Obama needs to learn that the mere repetition of a verbal formula does not change reality. The reality is that the Obama-backed House bill would explicitly authorize the federal government insurance plan to pay for elective abortions and would explicitly authorize subsidies for private abortion insurance -- and all with federal dollars, which are the only kind of dollars that the federal government can spend."

The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) last week released definitive memoranda that demonstrate that (1) the "Hyde Amendment" would not apply to the new programs that would be created by the Obama-backed health bill, H.R. 3200, and (2) that all of the funds that would be spent on elective abortions under the bill, and all of the funds that would be spent to subsidize private insurance plans that cover abortion, would be "federal funds" in both the legal sense and in the sense in which those terms are used throughout the government.
"The claim that a federal agency would be spending private funds on abortion, not federal funds, is absurd on its face, a political hoax," Johnson said.

To read a September 8 NRLC media advisory that summarizes these issues, go to http://www.nrlactioncenter.com/ to read the advisory contains links to the detailed memoranda that disprove the "Hyde Amendment myth" and the "government will spend private funds on abortions myth."

The National Right to Life Committee, the nation's largest pro-life group is a federation of affiliates in all 50 states and 3,000 local chapters nationwide.